Still Trippin

I had an early eye appointment in Atlanta today, so, after the appointment and in my continuing season of exploration, I decided to head North up to Blue Ridge to my parents’ cabin. I was more anxious that this spur of the moment trip may be tougher than the beach one because we had stuff there. Things we leave because we went there so often. We spent lots of time there over the years. This is a place David liked to go often and spend time just hanging out, grilling and watching football and Lifetime movies. We both liked to add commentary and comedic relief to those really poorly acted and written movies. We had some of the best conversations driving to and from there and while there. Just random discussions about anything and everything. The drive was lonely even with the Spotify playlists, and I decided to take a side quest to Amicalola Falls State Park. We have been there lots of times over the years, but we had never taken SL. I wanted to show her the pictures of the waterfall and also prove to myself that I was capable of navigating the 400+ steps to see it on my own. I stopped at the gift shop first and bought SL a couple of plushie babies and the magnet that proved I was there. Then I set out with the park map and forged the accessible trail from the bottom of the reflecting pool. Um…I don’t know when but they made the hills much steeper at some point. My legs were screaming to stop and my stubborn brain was saying you can keep going. My legs won as I smartly remembered I still had the steps to tackle.  There was supposedly an accessible trail to the mid-level of the falls, but I couldn’t seem to find where it started being the map illiterate pioneer that I am. I decided to drive up to the top and go down from there. I parked in the small lot and followed the trail to the top of the falls. So pretty but much more grown in than the last time I remember being there. I decided to at least go down the steps to the mid-way section of the falls to get a picture because making it to the bottom then all the way back up to the car seemed undoable and quite frankly, stupid. I wasn’t dressed for hiking in my jeans and long sleeve t-shirt judging by everyone around me wearing leggings, shorts, tank tops and hiking gear. Even the kids looked ready for the Oregon trail with backpacks and provisions. Nonetheless, I set out downward, past the warning sign about bears and strenuousness to prove to myself I could do it. Just the three of us. Perimen O. Pause, Lexapro, and me with the survival instinct of a radish. I had peeped out through the trees the sidewinding stairs and the various places people were stopping to rest. On step 83.3 I was done. I was not near the midpoint nor any picturable place to pose as proof. I did see a tiny bit of it through the trees and stopped to take a picture. I continued down another flight and my brain said you still will have to climb back to your car from here and my body said nope, not happening.  Some strange sound was pounding in my head, and I was sweating like I just placed in the Kentucky Derby. I stopped to rest and decide what to do. I tried talking myself into just doing small bits at a time but had flashes of my fat ass being airlifted out of the trees strapped into some contraption like a hippopotamus being relocated to another part of the savannah. So, I called it good enough and started back up. While I was resting on the way up, a much older couple than me came by and said you can do it, we are almost there.  I realized they mistakenly thought we had the same starting point and that I too had traveled from the bottom like they did.  They stopped above me and started chatting about how tough the climb was and how great we would feel making it to the top. Them and their fellow wilderness survivor they picked up on the way up Mount Doom. I would have corrected them had I been able to breathe and make words at the same time. So, with that, I traveled in their tail wind up the rest of the way, hearing the lady’s encouragement to her husband and also to me while trying not to sound like I was in active cardiac arrest when meeting people traveling downward. So, after convincing myself that this was to be my last day on earth as an alive person, dying on some hiking trail and no one believing that to be the truth, I made it to the top just a few steps behind my healthier geriatric friends. And when my foot finally touched that last step, I nearly stumbled, and my immediate thought was you won’t get up again. I willed my now shrieking calves up the hill to the parking lot, and I fell into the car and guzzled the now very warm water that tasted like it was fresh from the UK. I cranked up the AC to max velocity and I looked up to see the same couple stopped next to me leaning against their Subaru sipping water without a bead of sweat in sight. He gave me the thumbs up, and as I reversed out of there with the falsified documents of one who had been down the stairs of hell and back, I found it interesting I had very little guilt. I was just glad I survived without being on the evening news.

I continued on my way to Blue Ridge and made it there with a pounding head and feeling slightly nauseous.  I realized I had not had anything to eat and hardly enough water after that climb out of Mordor. I stopped and grabbed a pizza and headed to the cabin where I ate pizza and non-birthday birthday cake until Sunday when I packed up to head back home. I did stop off at one of my favorite little mountain shops Black Bear Antiques and spent a couple of hours in there looking at all the things I didn’t need. I read some and watched a few Lifetime Movies but they weren’t the same without someone to share commentary with. I decided to clean out our box of things we left there over the years and that made me sad. I tried to cry. I really felt like it would feel better, but I couldn’t. And now I wonder if it is the meds or if something is truly wrong with me. Should I feel guilt like I have felt before? Should I laugh or not laugh? Should I cry? Should I still be miserable to prove that I still miss him and am so lonely I cannot fathom living this way for the rest of my life such as it is? Maybe it is the meds and maybe I needed this mental time out. To not have to white knuckle through the day and not have my daughter feel so helpless not knowing what to do while I was wailing on the bathroom floor like a wounded animal. Maybe this is how it should be in this moment. Another trip on my own, and I wasn’t afraid, and I managed ok. It was lonely but it didn’t kill me. Another day. Another weekend trying to learn about me and what I am capable of doing on my own.